Aircraft generally include two decision makers tasked with responding to events. Some events that occur during aircraft operations cannot be addressed by automated, deterministic systems, either onboard or on ground. As reduced crew or no crew aircraft operations become more common, autonomous systems will be tasked with responding to these events. The probabilistic nature of autonomous systems makes it very difficult and potentially impossible to certify a single system for safe operation in the civil aviation. Additional protections into the avionics or through additional safety bounds between the autonomous system and the system control outputs may mitigate the issue; however, this greatly limits the ability of the autonomous system to match the responses and safety record of human flight crews when confronted with unexpected events.
Consequently, it would be advantageous if an apparatus existed that is suitable for allowing autonomous aircraft operations with the same versatility and reliability of current multi-crew operations.